Revival- the kingdom of God, prayer and holiness

The prayer that Jesus taught his disciples and which we pray most Sundays begins with a request for God’s Kingdom to come. It starts ‘Our Father who are in Heaven, Hallowed by your name,’ or may your name be held as holy, ‘may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’

And so we see that the kingdom of God is the will of God being done on earth just as it is being done in heaven. In heaven, God’s will is being done. That is what makes heaven heavenly! But we are praying for heaven to come to earth, for God’s will to be done not just in heaven but down here on earth. That is what we are praying for when we say ‘may your kingdom come.’ 

The word kingdom means ‘government’ . In Bible days the government was in the hands of a king. King David, King Herod and so on. The king was the government. The king governed the land. 

So when we pray your kingdom come, we are really praying Father God, may your government come on earth as in Heaven.

Does that make sense?

Because God’s government is not fully here. There are many things happening on Earth which God doesn’t like and doesn’t want to see happen. But He allows them. There is a lot of suffering, there is a lot of evil, there are natural disasters and wars and plagues and none of these things are heavenly. They are going on in earth, but in Heaven none of that evil is going on. 

God’s government, his kingdom is not fully established. 

But when we pray for the government of God on earth- then we are opening the door for things to change, for God to intervene. We are praying down heaven on earth. God has chosen to work through the prayers of his people, through Christian prayer. If his church doesn’t pray then God will not do many things that he would want to do. That means we have a big responsibility. We are responsible to pray. 

The prayer ministry of the church is vitally important. 

Notice the Lord’s prayer, that Jesus taught us begins with the word ‘Our’. It doesn’t begin with the word ‘My’, My Father who art in heaven, its ‘Our Father’. The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer to be prayed in a group. Not as an individual, but where two or more Christians are together. Yes off course you can and should pray it on your own. But it was designed as a group prayer. 

So united prayer is important- if we are going to see things happen, if we are going to see the kingdom of God in Edinburgh, in Scotland and God doing what He wants to do- we are going to have to pray and pray together.

What we are going to try is a 15 minute prayer time after the service ends today. So we will finish the service, take a 3 or 4 minute break and then those who want can come together at the front and pray together for 10 minutes. We will pray in small groups. We will pray for revival, for the kingdom, plus for individual needs. We will pray for things a bit deeper than we can pray for in the church all together. 

People who want to stay and chat rather than join the prayer – please do so. Fellowship – conversation is also important. Those who need to leave, off course that’s also fine. But those who want to knock on Heaven’s door for a few extra minutes, we can do so then.

If you want to know what it actually looks like for the kingdom of God to come to earth, then read the ministry of Jesus in the gospels. Jesus is God’s king and wherever Jesus walked, the kingdom, the government of God was revealed. The sick were healed and jumped for joy, the oppressed and demonized were freed, the sinners started living clean, the guilty were released from their shame and forgiven, the hungry were fed. Heaven came to earth. And then if you go on and read what happened in the early church in the book of Acts- it was just the same.

Look what happened.

Acts 4:32. It says- All the believers were one in heart and mind. There was great unity between the Christians. One in heart, one in mind. No division, no suspicion, no distrust, no walls, no barriers, everyone comfortable with everyone else, everyone pursuing the same goals, harmony. 

It says ‘no one claimed that any of his possessions were his own, but they shared everything they had.’ 

That shows the level of love they had for each other.

Then it says ‘with great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and much grace was upon them all.’ 

There was no one in need, because they all helped each other. People sold their fields and houses and gave it to the apostles, to be given to those who needed the money more. 

That reminds me of St Mungo’s church in Balerno, here in Edinburgh which is about to put in a planning application to the Council for a new church building housing a congregation of 350 people. And they are proposing to build it on a field given by a member of their congregation called Janet Brodie back in 1942- over 80 years ago. Janet donated the field with the aim that one day, a new church building would be built on that field. 

Everyone in St Mungos stands to benefit from Janet Brodie’s generosity and foresight. 

Notice that it is just after the mention of the powerful preaching of the gospel and the great grace that was on the church that the people are described as being so generous to each other. It seems that the church was so moved by seeing what God was doing and so aware of God’s grace, his goodness towards them, that they couldn’t help but be generous. When we really see and are aware of God’s generosity to us and others, then out of gratitude to God, we are generous. 

The distribution of wealth in the early church was much better than Communism. It was a fair distribution of resources, not because it was forced from above, by the state, but because the people chose out of their own free will to be kind to one another. This was not state control of private property, rather people kept control of their property as long as they wanted to, but chose to give it away out of compassion and love.  

There is a book called ‘the Jesus Family in Communist China’. 

It is a book which tells of a group of Chinese Christians who, when the communists came and made all the farms collective, asked for permission to have a Christian collective farm and they were allowed to do so. They had their farm and they had no police, no inspectors, no big whip, no pressure, and their farm produced two to three times as much as the other collective farms! The communists sent inspectors to find out how this collective farm was doing so much better than the others, and they just found love. They found people who enjoyed sharing, and a farm that gave according to need.

You know there are only three men in the New Testament who are called ‘good’.

The first one is Jesus- who was perfectly good. But there are two others. The first is Joseph of Arimethea, who was the man who gave up his own tomb for Jesus’ body to be buried. That was good of him. The other is a man called Barnabas- he is described as being a good man in Acts chapter 11.

What do these three men have in common? They were all generous- sacrificially generous. Jesus gave up his life for the world. Joseph gave us his tomb. Barnabas we read here that Barnabas sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet. His attitude was, other people need this more than me- I’m giving it away. That’s sheer goodness. What an example.

The other thing about Barnabas is that his name is actually a nickname given to him by the apostles and it means ‘Son of Encouragement’. And Barnabas was someone who just kept encouraging people, it was his gift- he built people up, giving them a boost when he spoke to them and interacted with them. What a gift. We all need encouraged, we get discouraged and disheartened and we need help to keep going. And Barnabas kept pumping people full of encouragement. 

My mentor Jim Dean said there are two people in the world- those who discourage and those who encourage. Those who lift people up and those who take them down. Lets be ones who are called sons and daughters of encouragement.

By the way, I’ve been talking about the kingdom of God. And last couple of Sundays with you, I was talking about revival. Well a revival is the coming of the kingdom of God. It’s the coming of the Holy Spirit upon a church and community which brings God’s kingdom to earth. Which brings God’s government. A revival is an outbreak of the Kingdom of God. Its an answer to the Lord’s prayer.

There are two things we see in a revival, in a time when the Holy Spirit is really moving powerfully in his church- that are not much seen in the churches of today. And that is the fear of God and holiness.

I’ve read that nowadays we worship ‘God all matey’ not ‘God Almighty’! We have lost the sense of awe for God and his holiness and we see him as a mate.

In revival God shows himself to be holy and his demand for his people to be holy becomes very clear and in revival when people aren’t holy, God’s judgement on sin comes quicker. 

Here in the book of Acts, we are looking at the Jerusalem church in revival. 

A couple- Ananias and his wife Sapphira -sell a piece of property and they give some of the money they get for the sale of the property to the church and they keep some of it for themselves. What they do is they pretend they are giving all of the money to the church, when in fact it is only some of it. So they are being deceitful. They are pretending. Actually the word used is lying. 

So Ananias comes in and puts the money at the apostles’ feet. And Peter says to him ‘Ananias, how is that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept some of the money you received for the land.’ You have not lied to men but to God.

This tells us that when someone tells a lie to church leadership- he is lying to God.

You know Jesus associates very closely with his church. When Saul was persecuting the church- Jesus said to him, ‘Saul, Saul why do you persecute me’? He didn’t say why are you persecuting the church, but why are you persecuting me? What a person does to the church, he does to Jesus, he does to the Holy Spirit, he does to God. If you lie to the church, you lie to the Holy Spirit. If you laugh at the church, you are laughing at God. If you stay away from church, you are staying away from Christ. Whatever you do to the church you do to the Lord. 

Paul says to Ananias – you have lied to the Holy Spirit and you have lied to God. 

Notice too that Satan was behind this. Satan, the devil, had according to Peter, filled Ananias’ heart. Ananias had allowed the devil to influence him. When God is moving in a church, the devil will do what he can to stop it. When revival comes here, to this church, we will need to remember and be on guard for that.

Now you could say that Ananias and Sapphira were doing good. They were giving to the church, they weren’t stealing from it, but donating money to it. But despite this, they were falling far short in God’s eyes because of their sin. Because they were lying as they did it. 

Well Ananias as soon as Peter calls him out for his sin- falls down dead. God judges him immediately.

And great fear seized all who heard about it. And Ananias’ body is swiftly wrapped in a shroud and buried.

Three hours later his wife comes in, not knowing what has happened. Peter gives Sapphira a chance to tell the truth- is this the price of the land you sold? She said ‘yes’ but the truth was it was only some of the price. Peter says ‘how could you test The Spirit of the Lord? The men who just buried your husband are about to bury you’ and she too falls down dead at that moment. 

Great fear filled the church.

You know in revival, you can’t get away with the sins you would otherwise do. There is less leeway.

That is why I believe God doesn’t send revivals to some churches, because there is too much sin and they wouldn’t cope with God’s holy presence in their midst. God would have to judge them for their sin.

David Pawson tells of a situation that happened in a church, I think in England. He writes

‘Years ago I heard about a man who was wrecking a church. At every church meeting he was saying things that spoiled the fellowship. One night the minister and his wife were going home after another meeting ruined by that man, and the wife said to the minister, “You know, if we were living in the days of the New Testament, that man wouldn’t be allowed to live.” That night, the man’s soul was required of him and a phone call in the early hours of the morning told them that the Lord had taken him.’

There is a phrase in English ‘playing with fire’. A revival is when the fiery presence of God starts to burn in a church. But you can’t play games with a fire, because you will be burned. So Ananias and Sapphira found out. 

Malachi describes the coming of God to his people. But he says that when God come he comes to cleanse and to purify, like soap and a refiners fire. Malachi 3 says

² But who can endure the day of [the Lord’s] coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, ⁴ and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.

Personal holiness is important to God:

Jesus said ‘Be innocent as doves’ 

The book of James- ‘Keep one self from being polluted by the world.’

In fact if revival is to come to a church, then we must not only pray but we must show God we are serious that we want it by getting holy, by getting cleaned up. Before Jesus could come to Israel, God had to send John the Baptist with the call for the people to repent and get cleaned up. 

Evan Roberts (who was the main leader in the Welsh revival of 1904) encouraged the congregations in Wales to prepare for revival. He said – ‘We must rid the church of all bad feeling, all malice, envy, prejudice and misunderstandings. Bow not in prayer until all offences have been forgiven, but if you feel you cannot forgive, bend to the dust, and ask for a forgiving spirit. You shall get it then.’

In Asbury University in Kentucky, America in 2023 there was a revival that lasted 16 days. The presence of God just came down. It started when after a regular church service, some students stayed behind and one of them decided to openly confess his sins to the others. At that moment ‘the atmosphere changed’ and the Spirit of God began to move. 

A pastor at Asbury said a year after the 16 day revival, so speaking in 2024. He said ‘The temperature on campus is unbelievable... They’re wanting to pursue holiness. They want to be done with porn. They want to be done with addiction to their phones. They want to be done with those kinds of things. They want to really have an authentic walk with the Lord.’

The revival has had a long term effect on the university. But it all started with a group of students getting serious about holiness and sin and the revival created a new desire in the youngsters to be holy.

Let me finish with one very well known prophecy which was given for the UK back in 1967, almost 60 years ago, by the American evangelist Jean Darnell. It is I believe a true prophecy which tells us that God is wanting to get his church in the UK to eagerly desire the things we read about in the book of Acts. When that happens, and we pray, then revival will come.

In 1967 Jean was on her way to Hong Kong via the UK and when in Dorset, England, she saw the following vision:

Vision Of Revival In Great Britain

The British Isles were covered in mist (a green haze), and Jean Darnell saw lots of pinpoints of light piercing through. As she looked, they turned out to be fires breaking out all over the nation, from Scotland in the North, to Lands End in the South.

These fires were pockets of people who had been made intensely hungry for the word of God and for New Testament Christianity, those who read the book of Acts and wondered 'where is this church?'

These people would come together to pray and extra meetings would have to be laid on to accommodate all the people. Groups would be formed, prayer groups, Bible study groups - some would meet in churches, others would be in homes: some converted, others unconverted who were searching and seeking.

As these God-lit fires were joined together they burned brighter. As she continued to pray, she saw lightning and explosions of fire and then rivers of fire flowing from North to South; from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales into England and some of the streams of fires crossed the channel into Europe, whilst others stopped.

Jean Darnall asked the Lord about the vision and had the distinct impression that there would be two moves of God.

The first would be the renewal of Christian faith and fullness of the Holy Spirit within the church.

The second part of the vision was the lightning striking around the nation. This move of God would be a national spiritual awakening, which would move into every level of the nation’s life; on the campuses, universities, colleges, schools etc., into the media and in the government.

There would be so many conversions that it would actually change the character of the nation of Britain and determine the future move of God in Europe. Jean continued that there would not be a part of the nation’s life that will not feel the impact of the spiritual awakening when God releases it to the country.

Let us be among those people who get hungry for New Testament Christianity, for the church of the book of Acts. Let’s get hungry for God’s holiness, his presence and his power, lets desire church unity, lets pray down the kingdom of God, pray for another revival. There is so much more available than we are experiencing right now. Let’s seek it.